1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus with an image exposure device provided therein in which an image is exposed onto a photosensitive material and heat development and transfer processing is effected in such a manner that the photosensitive material and an image receiving material, to which an image forming solvent is applied, overlap with each other to thereby form an image on the image receiving material.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of image recording apparatuses' each having a digital exposure system mounted thereon have been developed. Generally, in the digital exposure system, an image is recorded on a recording medium in such a manner that a light beam outputted from a semiconductor laser carries image data and the light beam is deflected by high-speed rotation of a polygon mirror (main scanning), and further the light beam reflected by the polygon mirror is subjected to sub-scanning with a galvano mirror or the like, or the above main scanning is effected repeatedly while moving the recording medium (or moving the recording medium stepwise). Here, as the recording medium, a photosensitive drum electrified by corona discharge, a photosensitive material, or the like may be used. Further, in place of the semiconductor laser, other light emitter such as an LED may be used as a light source.
On the other hand, there exists an image recording apparatus in which, after an image has been recorded on a photosensitive material, the image is transferred to an image receiving material by heat development-transfer processing with the photosensitive material an d the image receiving material overlapping each other. This apparatus includes a so-called analog exposure system (in this case, slit exposure is usually used in which light is irradiated on an original material and the light reflected therefrom is sequentially guided to the photosensitive material) and a digital exposure system, which are used to record the image on the photosensitive material.
Further, the image can be recorded on an image receiving material having substantially the same quality as that of general paper, and the above image recording apparatus is suitably applied to various fields by selecting the analog exposure system or the digital exposure system as described above.
Incidentally, when the image recording apparatus as described above is used as an output device for various networks or personal computers, it is necessary to use the digital exposure system.
However, the above-described image recording apparatus of heat development-transfer type requires, in addition to the digital exposure system, many functions (mechanisms) such as a mechanism for allowing the photosensitive material and the image receiving material to overlap each other, an image forming solvent-applying mechanism for facilitating formation of an image during heat development-transfer processing, a heat development mechanism, a mechanism for separating the photosensitive material and the image receiving material from each other, and the like, and the apparatus is thereby made larger. Further, in the case of full-color printing processing, high-accurate assembling of component parts is required to prevent misregistration of colors, or the like, thereby resulting in deterioration of assembly operating efficiency.